CCTV for Home Cost UK 2026: Hardware, Installation and VAT

A basic 4-camera wired CCTV system costs from about £800 ex VAT supplied and fitted, which is about £960 once 20% VAT is added, according to Checkatrade, and about £1,000 ex VAT for eight cameras. Crimerate's survey puts a basic 4-camera system lower, at an average of £584 all-in. In both sources the fitting costs more than the equipment for four cameras, so labour, cabling, the recorder and storage move the total more than the camera price does. The formula below lets you build a figure from current prices on the day you buy.

What does a home CCTV system cost, line by line?

Total cost = hardware + cabling and labour + storage and subscriptions + upkeep + the "forgotten" items. For upkeep, Checkatrade suggests a yearly check at about £100 ex VAT, or about £120 with VAT, though that is a suggestion rather than a requirement. The sections below cover the other lines.

The table sets two published UK benchmarks side by side. Both are ex VAT and indicative only.

Source	Hardware	Cabling and install	Upkeep
Checkatrade (table dated May 2024, page updated October 2024)	Supply only: 4-camera wired system about £300; 8-camera about £500	Wired cabling and install about £500	Annual check about £100
Crimerate survey, 4-camera DVR system	£198–307	£250–500	Not given

Adding the two Checkatrade lines gives its £800 total for four cameras and £1,000 for eight. Adding Crimerate's ranges gives £448–807 for a four-camera setup, against a survey average of £584 all-in.

Prices on Clear Security include 20% VAT, so multiply any ex-VAT benchmark by 1.2 before comparing. Checkatrade's £800 becomes £960 and its £1,000 becomes £1,200, while Crimerate's £198–307 equipment range becomes roughly £238–368. Installation is carried out by your own electrician or installer, so ask them to quote on the same VAT basis.

What are the hardware costs for a flat, a semi and a detached house?

Hardware cost is the number of cameras times the camera price, plus one recorder and one hard drive. As a starting point, a flat might need two cameras, a semi four and a detached house eight.

The examples below use the Hilook 4 MP mini bullet THC-B140-R and the Hilook 3 MP mini bullet THC-B230-R. Both are fixed-view bullets for entrances and corridors, and the price on each product page includes VAT.

Property	Camera positions	What to price
2-camera flat	Front door, rear or balcony	2 × THC-B230-R, a Turbo HD DVR and a hard drive
4-camera semi	Front, side passage, rear, garage or driveway	4 × THC-B140-R, a Turbo HD DVR and a hard drive
8-camera detached	The semi's four, plus the second side, outbuildings and plot corners	4 × THC-B140-R, 4 × THC-B230-R, a Turbo HD DVR and a hard drive

Both cameras are Turbo HD models, so they need a compatible Turbo HD DVR to record. The camera price is not the system price: the DVR needs at least as many channels as you have cameras, and without a drive it has nowhere to store footage. Cable and fitting are priced separately below.

How much do cabling and installation labour add?

Labour on a small system typically runs to a few hundred pounds: Crimerate's survey puts 4-camera installation at £250–500, ex VAT.

Cable and fixings

Work out cable as metres per camera × the current per-metre price on the cable's product page. Then add clips, glands, a junction box and wall-entry sealing for each run. Measure the route the cable will take, not the straight-line distance, because runs follow walls, eaves and ducts and are almost always longer than the gap between camera and recorder.

Who fits it

Clear Security sells equipment and does not install. Your own electrician or installer fits it, so give them the datasheet or installation guide for the camera you've chosen.

Labour benchmarks (ex VAT)

• Crimerate: £250–500 for 4 cameras and £350–650 for 16 on DVR systems, so quadrupling the cameras adds only about £100–150 at either end of that range.
• Checkatrade: about £500 for a wired install, which is the figure behind both its £800 four-camera and £1,000 eight-camera totals, against about £150 for a wireless system.

Whatever the benchmarks say, get written quotes for your own layout, because the cable route decides the labour.

What pushes quotes up

• Height or eaves work
• Hidden wiring, which Checkatrade says to allow for on wired systems
• Listed buildings
• Location, with Checkatrade expecting higher costs in major cities and Crimerate noting higher installation rates in the South of England

DIY or professional: where does the money actually go?

DIY saves only the installer's labour: the cameras, recorder and cable cost the same whoever fits them. Crimerate's UK market survey puts installation quotes for a basic 4-camera DVR system at £250–500, against £198–307 for the equipment. That installation range is the most DIY can save, and it disappears if a cable has to be re-run or a loft or masonry job needs a professional to finish it.

	DIY	Own installer
Labour	Your own time, no fee	Quoted by the installer; this is the line DIY removes
Tools and consumables	You buy or borrow a masonry drill, clips, sealant and connectors	Normally carried already; check whether the quote includes them
Risk of rework	Higher: a damaged or badly routed cable means pulling it again at your cost	Lower, and faulty workmanship is the installer's to put right
Commissioning and settings	You set aim, recording mode and passwords from the datasheet or installation guide	Usually done on site; confirm it is included
Warranty and fault claims	Faulty equipment goes back to the seller; nobody covers your workmanship	Equipment as DIY; workmanship depends on the installer's terms, so get them in writing

Matching equipment is part of commissioning. A coax camera such as the THC-B230-R needs a compatible Turbo HD DVR to record, so check the pairing before anyone drills a wall.

Which route suits whom

• DIY: a flat with one or two cameras, short cable runs and an owner who is comfortable with basic tools and recorder menus.
• Professional: a detached house where cable must go through masonry, into the loft or along the eaves, or where the job comes anywhere near mains wiring.

Electrical safety

Any mains work, such as a new spur or socket for the recorder, should be done by a qualified electrician working to BS 7671. The low-voltage camera side is where DIY is realistic, because you are fitting cameras and cable rather than altering fixed wiring.

Which costs get missed: storage, PoE switch, signage and faulty cameras?

Four lines get missed: drive capacity sized to your retention period, a PoE switch on IP builds, GDPR signage, and a plan for faulty cameras.

Storage and retention

Take the bitrate from your camera datasheet rather than guessing, then work out the drive size. Capacity in megabytes = bitrate in Mbps × number of cameras × seconds recorded per day × days of retention ÷ 8. Divide the result by 1,000,000 for terabytes. The result assumes continuous recording, and motion-only recording lowers it. Check the current price of the recorder and hard drive once you have settled on a retention period.

Cloud storage is a recurring line rather than a one-off. Crimerate notes that subscription smart systems such as Verisure or SimpliSafe almost always charge a monthly fee for monitoring and cloud video storage.

PoE switch (IP builds only)

The combined wattage of your cameras must fit inside the switch's PoE budget, so add up the draw from each datasheet and leave some headroom. Each cable run must also stay within the standard 100 m Ethernet limit.

Turbo HD builds skip the switch, but they carry their own cost: a power supply sized to the cameras' datasheet current. The THC-B140-R, for example, is a 12V DC camera with no PoE.

Signage and faulty cameras

Signage costs very little, but you need it as soon as a camera records beyond your own boundary. Once a camera covers a public footpath or a neighbour's property, the ICO's home CCTV guidance says data protection law applies and you must display signage showing that CCTV is in operation.

On faults, you have 30 days to reject faulty goods. Test every camera and recorder channel as soon as the parcel arrives.

Related products

Related products from our own range:

• Hilook 3 MP Fixed Mini Bullet Camera THC-B230-R — 3 MP Turbo HD bullet camera for entrances and corridors. Needs a compatible Turbo HD DVR to record. Prices include VAT. Free UK delivery over £100.
• Hilook 4 MP Fixed Mini Bullet Camera THC-B140-R — 4MP Turbo HD mini bullet camera for home and business CCTV, with a fixed view for entrances and corridors. Prices include VAT. Free UK delivery over £100.